Mizoram’s Bru tribals, languishing in refugee camps in Tripura for 15 years, seek a closure to their misery, reports Ratnadip Choudhury
Search for the lost A Bru couple at the site of a deadly fire in the Naisingpara cahat claimed 16 lives
Eking out a living A Bru woman sells vegetables to survive
Waiting for the day Two Bru women longing to return to their homes in Mizoram
Living quarters A view of the Naisingpara camp in north Tripura
Search for the lost A Bru couple at the site of a deadly fire in the Naisingpara camp in March 2011 that claimed 16 lives

No body imagined that the murder of a Mizo forest guard in the Dampa Tiger Reserve in
1997 would cause an ethnic clash that would affect the lives of 50,000
people. But it did. And the Brus, a tribe from the Mamit district in
Mizoram, had to flee to escape violence at the hands of the majority
Mizos. Essentially Hindus, some 50,000 Brus sought refuge in
neighbouring Tripura, from the Christian-dominated Mizoram.
Between 1997 and
2012, some 17,000 Brus have returned to Mizoram, till the Mizo
government stopped repatriation.

The state claimed that a section of the
refugees was opposed to the move, fearing violence would resume once
they were back in Mizoram.

This, the state then claimed, also put the
lives of the officials overseeing the process under threat. The Brus
felt security lay in being close together. Repatriation would make sense
only if all of them were sent back to Mamit. Fear of a backlash from
the Mizos still haunts them.

In 2010, the Centre
chalked out an annual compensation of Rs 80,000 and free rations for
each family. After a long wait, things moved in the right direction only
this year when Union Home Minister P Chidambaram visited the camp in
Kanchanpur subdivision on 18 February.

For many years, the Brus have been living on
bare essentials foraged from nearby forests. Traditionally into
shifting cultivation, some work as daily-wage labourers.

Such is the fear of
retaliation that even Chidambaram’s assurances failed to convince the
Brus to return unless they were given a written assurance by the Mizoram
government. Their concerns are security, land and jobs, as well as
increasing the free-ration grant to two years after repatriation.

The
Centre has announced a self-employment scheme for those returning. As a
reconciliatory measure, it has also agreed to Mizoram’s demand of
granting rehabilitation packages to 83 Mizo families evicted from
Tripura in 1983. In a quid pro quo gesture, Mizoram has agreed to take
back all refugees.

Until then, the Brus are willing to fight it out,
preferring to struggle with tubewells that are dry and stomachs that go
hungry.